


Ghost Story

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Haunting, Horror, Psychological Horror, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-05 18:52:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14624928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: It starts with the phantom sound of laughter, glimpses of motion just out of sight, a boy in a tattered Robin suit, and the sneaking suspicion that not all of Jason made it back from the dead.





	1. Chapter 1

The suit has moved.

Tim Drake is sure of it.

It’s been in the same place the same position for years. It stayed in the same place even after Jason roared back into town, a silent reminder of the danger of their line of work. They all understood its significance.

Alfred’s the only one whole touches the case, clearing the dust once a week, his face downcast.

They don’t talk about it. They’ve never talked about it. Even Damian seems able to sense that the suit is off limits.

But it’s moved. The lenses, so long nothing but opaque white, have been lifted. The glove hand seems curled a little tighter, like it’s on its way to making a fist. Tim stares at the empty eyes, a sense of unease knotting in his stomach.

Because he swears, before he turned his head, he’d seen a flicker of blue eyes behind that masked gaze.

* * *

There’s laughter laced through the manor again.

It’s been so quiet since Dick moved out, since Jason died. Tim, though Alfred loves the boy dearly, had been rather more reserved than his first two charges and Damian has never been a child who allows himself unrestrained laughter.

Alfred finds himself following it, expecting to find Stephanie has snuck herself inside, or maybe Cass returning to the cheer of the rest of family, but it’s elusive, moving through the halls like a mischievous child planning a prank.

He tails it through the house, weaving through the kitchen, the study, the library, his pace just short of hurried, his careful route just short of a _chase_. A door slams in the distance, and though Alfred usually regards closed doors as a desire for privacy, he can _hear_ the laughter on the other side.

The door creaks as it opens, and then the laughter stops.

Alfred blinks.

The window is open, the white curtains fluttering like gossamer threads in the wind. On the desk is a stack of books, and a handwritten report. The bed is made, but made in the kind of slapdash manor that young boys deem sufficient. It is a room that looks _lived in_ despite the fact that its owner refuses to return.

It’s Jason’s room.

It was Jason’s laughter he chased through the manor. 

Alfred sits down on the foot of the bed, a hand fisted in the comforter.

He tries very hard not to cry.

* * *

Damian’s been dreaming.

Not about his childhood, or even about his own death.

Damian’s been dreaming about clowns.

He’s not usually involved when the Joker’s around either Father, Grayson, or even Drake finding some way to sideline him. It’s insulting to his skill. Only when he tries to slip his house arrest, Pennyworth is always there, his face stern as he acts as Damian’s jailer.

But Damian never tries to escape twice.

Because he dreams about clowns, about the slow arc of a crowbar through the air, and the incessant sound of laughter.  He wakes with white flashing through his vision, gasping against air that smells somehow of smoke.

He has never asked how Jason Todd died. He knows only the vagaries. That he had disobeyed orders, that the Joker found him, but the rest has been beneath his notice.

When he wakes he can taste the blood in his mouth.

* * *

New Jason scares him.

Dick doesn’t like to admit it, but there’s a jagged disconnect between the Red Hood and the Robin he used to know. The first time Dick had seen Jason post resurrection, Dick hadn’t recognized him. He had to identify his brother solely by the picture Batman had provided.

Jason hadn’t even tipped ninety pounds when he’d died.

The thing that uses his name is a behemoth, at times wearing more bulk than even Batman.

And Jason as Robin… he’d snuck books out on patrol for slow nights. He’d lost a half dozen acquaintances to gunfire before age nine and even after Robin training, he’d flinched at the crack of every gun. He made jokes, had a knack for puns that impressed even Dick and mocked Batman’s growled threads in increasingly ridiculous voices.  

New Jason growls, himself. New Jason has embraced the gunfire. Dick hasn’t seen New Jason with a book since he got back. Or one of his Batman impressions or…

Dick’s well aware that people change as the get older. He’s even more aware that a trauma like _being murdered_ probably makes those changes more drastic.

But Jason’s eyes are a different color. His height doesn’t match Leslie’s prognosis that malnutrition likely robbed him of his full potential. His accent has smoothed over, product of years abroad, and he doesn’t sound the same _,_ doesn’t look the same, doesn’t laugh the same.

Sometimes, Dick finds himself tracking Red Hood at night, a single shameful thought sneaking insidiously into his head.

 _You’re_ not _my brother._

* * *

The kid’s following him again, trailing behind him on rooftops, his hair a mess of barely tamed curls, his legs bare and calling attention to the woefully insufficient armor.

Jason pulls his gun, checks the clip, chambers a bullet.

The kid laughs at him. “Are you really that far gone?”

That he would shoot a kid? Even one dressed in a costume like that. He raises the gun almost lazily and takes aim at the insignia on his shoulder.

At the bright yellow _R._

“You’re not Jason anymore, are you?” the kid asks. “You haven’t been Jason for a long, long time.”

He pulls the trigger and the apparition explodes into mist. He can almost feel the pressure wave, like an actual explosion, like the one that killed him, bouncing his brain against the inside of his skull, exacerbating injuries...

…that healed in a Lazarus Pit years ago.

He sits down hard on the rooftop, closes his eyes and struggles to regain his breathing.

When he opens them again, the kid’s in front of him, but he’s been… mangled.

One of the lenses in his domino mask has cracked. He’s cradling an arm with a compound fracture, as he hobbles towards Jason on a left foot that’s bent in so it’s parallel to the ground.

Jason always known the kid in the Robin costume that tailed him on slow nights wasn’t Damian. Even if it was hard to match the face with the one he sees in the mirror every day, the costume and the injuries would have given it away.

“Go away,” Jason says. “You’re not real.”

The kid smiles, displaying a mouth full of mangled teeth, some missing, some broke and jagged, all of them streaked with blood. “I’m more real than you are. You know exactly what I am.”

Because he’s heard it in more places than one. That the Lazarus Pit takes something from you. That there’s no way you can survive the experience and still be whole. That there’s a piece of Jason that’s still missing.

And he’s always known what he lost.

“You’re Robin,” Jason says.

When the kid disappears, it doesn’t feel like a victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breaking a personal rule a bit with this one and posting a WIP without having a stockpile of chapters. I'd been going back and forth on how I was going to develop this story because there was definitely a path forward that wasn't in the horror genre.
> 
> But the horror genre is actually my favorite.
> 
> I don't anticipate this being super long and what's currently posted works okay as a standalone mood piece so we'll see what happens.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason seems more solid today.

He’s always been there in some form, a manifestation of Bruce’s guilt, but he’s usually not a physical presence that demands attention _._  

He sits to Bruce’s left at the Wayne Enterprises board meeting, spinning absently in his chair, his eyes tracking one executive to the other, his mouth in something just short of a scowl. Bruce bites back the instinct to tell him to be respectful, but understands that in the board room, next to him was always where Jason was meant to be.

Bruce had always known Dick didn’t have the patience to run Wayne Enterprises. Jason, on the other hand, might grind his teeth at the tedium but he’d volunteer it in a heartbeat if it meant he could help people. After all, he used to berate Bruce’s focus after particularly hard losses in the field, shouting that Batman’s crusade was useless.

That Bruce Wayne could do so much more for the city than Batman.

Tim, though he has more than enough business acumen, doesn’t understand that on the same visceral level. Which was why Jason in his youth, endured the whispers about him being a charity case from the Gotham elite at the charity dinners, why he’d grumbled, but never tried to escape the galas like Dick always had.

Bruce had always thought (hoped) that it would have been Jason to take over one day. Tim would be thrilled to head over to R&D. And Jason…

Jason’s eyes have narrowed as he watches the budget presentation, the back and forth of the chair has stopped.

“B,” he says. “Something about this looks fishy.”

There’s been something bothering Bruce himself, some inconsistency in the numbers, but it’s hard to focus on what it could be when he’s trying to function on less than three hours of sleep. Lucius is here though. He’ll make sure it works out.

Jason lets out a soft huff. “And I’m not even talking about the toupee.”

Bruce feels the corners of his mouth twitch upwards which is a bad idea. Whenever Jason senses weakness, he doubles down. And it’s always been Jason’s mission to make Batman laugh.

Except when he glances sideways, Jason isn’t there anymore. The seat is empty, spinning very faintly like someone has left in a rush. He can’t help but turn in his seat to stare.

Because he should have remembered this.

Jason’s _dead_ and on days like this, even knowing that Red Hood will be stalking the streets at night, Bruce still feels the loss like a missing limb. His breath catches, his heartrate spiking. He can hear the difference in his own breathing as his throat tries to close.

It takes another moment to realize the rest of the room has gone quite.

Lucius clears his throat. “I think that’s all we have for the day.”

Bruce finds himself frozen as the rest of the room filters out around him, staring at Jason’s empty chair. Lucius waits until the board room clears before turning to him. “Mr. Wayne, are you all right?”

“Of course,” Bruce answers automatically.

Lucius looks unconvinced. “We all understand that it’s a rough anniversary. If you need to take the day, I don’t think there will be any grumbling given the circumstances.”

“What?”

“It’s April 27th, Mr. Wayne.”

The smell of smoke hangs in the air.

Things aren't as bad as they have been, but Red Hood still murders those who he deems unredeemable and three days ago, his gun had been aimed squarely at the symbol on the Batsuit.

No matter the differences he has with his son, Bruce never thought they’d get this bad.

“I think I need a moment alone,” Bruce says.

“Of course, Mr. Wayne,” Lucius says. He knows better than to offer Bruce any physical sign of comfort as he gathers the rest of his notes into his briefcase and leaves the room.

There’s a body in the corner of the room, the smell of smoke even more overwhelming.

Bruce reaches for his cell phone. For the number in his contacts that had taken him nearly a week to track down. The one that he has never dialed because...

“That’s not me,” a voice whispers in his ear.

The same sentiment he’d heard when staring down Joker, Red Hood and a gun.

The reason he’d reached for a Batarang, a moment of carelessness as he’d sent it arcing towards Red Hood’s throat. It should have been fatal. A way to erase the mockery of the thing that dared use his son’s name.

“Dad,” Jason pleads.

Bruce deletes the contact.

* * *

_He’s the same person,_ Dick thinks sternly to himself as he watches Hood throw himself into a melee. In a fight it’s easier to believe. There was always a barely constrained glee when Jason fights. Like learning to kick ass on the same level as Batman was the most important thing in the world to him. Bruce never liked the savage joy Jason took in plowing through a group of criminals, but Dick had never seen the point in a lecture.

Because Alfred had shown him the pictures of Jason fresh off the streets, undersized, painfully thin and covered in bruises. The kid enjoyed being able to stand up for himself.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Jason crows.

He hasn’t pulled his gun yet, fighting with fists, elbows and knees. The few times they’d sparred… before, Jason hadn’t had the skill to touch him, hadn’t had the reach, hadn’t had the speed.

Watching now, Dick’s fairly certain that he still has the advantage when it comes to speed. But Jason has adapted his style for his new body type and Dick, given the opportunity, still fights like a Robin. He’s not sure how he would fare if Jason actually locked him into a close quarter fight.

He realizes, with a small surge of guilt that he’s been assessing him like an opponent. Looking for weaknesses to exploit. Trying to find some way to take him down.

 _He almost killed Tim._ The voice in his head doesn’t sound like his own. _He almost killed Damian. You really think that thing was ever Robin?_

Dick forces himself to loosen his grip on his escrima sticks. The Bats and Jason have a truce. He doesn’t kill in Gotham. He helps during a disaster. And they leave him alone.

It’s better for all of them. 

“You gonna watch all night, Dickface?” Hood calls from the melee, his concentration never breaking.

Put like that, he can’t refuse an invitation. Especially not from an estranged brother. He dives into the mob with a grin, carving a way through to get to Hood’s side.

And Hood might not fight like Robin used to, but his movements are still familiar, the cues clearly learned from fighting side by side with Batman. With two of them there, the mob falls within a few minutes.

Dick’s breathing hard by the end of it. There’s really no way to fight more than twenty people and not take a few knocks. He glances over his shoulder to see Jason similarly bent double, his chest heaving with exertion.

“You know,” Dick says before he thinks better of it. “Times like this I almost understand your weapon of choice. Way less effort.”

There’s a beat of silence and Dick panics as he realizes he’s said exactly the wrong thing.

But then there’s a sound, a small huff of laughter that’s dangerously close to a giggle.

“Hood,” Dick says hesitantly.

“I’m going to want that in writing,” Jason says through his laughter. “Think I can get Alfred to notarize it?”

“Alfred’s a notary?” Dick asks.

“Of course he’s a notary.”

Dick feels his face split into an answering smile.

Because he remembers this. Robin almost giddy as he came down from his post-fight adrenaline rush, his smile wide, his breath escaping as laughter.

And it’s the link he’s been looking for, the thing that almost makes him believe he can tie New Jason to the Robin he’d used to know.

The surge of nostalgia turns his smile sad as he says, “Hey, Little Wing, you remember that ski trip we took?”

It’s one of the few good memories he has of the two of them. One of the few not marred by his fights with Bruce or his burning resentment over another kid wearing his colors. He wishes he had more memories like that. Before Jason died, Dick thought they might have been moving that way.  Hopes that they can start moving that way again.

Jason’s laughter stops, the impersonal helmet turning in his direction.

Jason says, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

* * *

The photograph swims in the developer as Tim watches, the silver on the photo paper stripping away slowly as the carefully exposed image starts to take shape. He could have used his digital camera for this, but then he’d have to upload them somewhere for detail work, which meant putting them on a computer.

If they were on a computer, Batman would find them.

Besides, he has more control this way. He trusts the process implicitly when he can watch it. When he’s the one to spool and develop the film. To expose the images.

No chance of file corruption. No chance of outside manipulation or computer glitches.

He has a week’s worth of photos. All of them from the same angle, taken religiously first thing in the morning, directly pre-patrol and then directly post-patrol. The negatives are too small for the details, but on photo paper, they’re abundantly clear.

He was right. The suit _has moved_.

But even that he can explain away. It’s not like the suit’s a statue. It’s not like Alfred doesn’t clean it. It’s not like Damian knows it’s not supposed to be touched.

He fishes the last photograph out of the developer and moves it to the stop bath. It’s only a partial exposure, the twenty-fifth of the roll, half the frame lost to light exposure. He’d considered ignoring it all together, but he’s always been a completionist.

But as he stares at the photograph in the dim red light of the darkroom, he doesn’t see an empty suit.

Half of the face is missing, but there’s definitely a _face_ filling the mask. The image is ghostly, almost like a double exposure, but Tim knows that face. He still has hundreds of photographs of that boy stashed in his room.

Knows that boy died years ago.

“Jason,” he whispers.

 _Help me,_ the photograph whispers back.


	3. Chapter 3

Damian wakes up screaming. He thrashes out with force but no finesse, tangling his feet in his sheets as he topples himself out of bed. Blood lingers on his tongue and for a second he’s sure he bit it during his nightmare, but the sensation doesn’t fade.

He tilts his back to lean against the side of his bed. When his breathing returns to normal, he bends to start untangling the sheets trapping his feet.

Damian spares a moment to be thankful that he hasn’t been heard. Back when he stayed with his mother, a commotion like this would have been noticed. Would attract the attention of his grandfather’s men.

And later, after confirmation that it wasn’t an assassination attempt, Damian would be punished.

He pushes the thoughts away and wills his hands to stop shaking. His hair is plastered to his face with sweat, the clown’s laughter still ringing in his ears.

Before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s started his habitual injury assessment. He still tastes blood, but there’s nothing wrong on his face or in his mouth. He’s been nursing a sprained ankle from a misstep on a rooftop, but otherwise, his legs are intact.

When he prods his torso he finds himself winching in pain.

He pulls up his shirt.

Even in the dimness of his room, he can see the vivid purple bruise spanning most of his chest. He frowns, swallowing back panic as he remembers the glimpses of the clown in his dream.

He peers at the pattern of bruising. If he didn’t know better, he’d say they were product of repeated blows with a blunt object.

Something like a crowbar.

* * *

When Tim walks into the cave, he has his camera in hand. He’s a good twenty minutes earlier than Bruce’s usual time, Alfred’s running his afternoon errands and it should give him a chance to try to reach out to Jason. A chance he’s been waiting for since he was a kid.

Only someone has beaten him to the cave.

Dick’s not in costume yet, standing in front of the memorial seemingly lost in thought. Tim’s found Bruce in this position regularly, his shoulders visibly weighted by the guilt, but Dick—especially after Jason’s resurrection—ignored the suit. He’d even lobbied for its removal only to be voted down.

Dick doesn’t move when Tim makes his way over but, much like Batman, he seems to sense Tim’s presence. “You know, I saw him yesterday.”

“Robin?” Tim asks.

“Red Hood,” Dick answers, looking over his shoulder in surprise. “I see Damian, all the time.”

There’s an edge to his voice that Tim recognizes. Jason’s a sore subject for the people who knew him before his death. Then again with the murder attempts, he’s also kind of a sore subject for the family members who didn’t.

“Red Hood then,” Tim allows. “He didn’t try to shoot your or anything, did he?”

Dick glances down to his civvies, a faint smile on his face. “No, I’m not injured. I found him taking on a mob. He… ask for help is a strong word, but that’s what it felt like for a second. It was good. Better than it’s been in a long time. For a second it was like...”

“Like he never died.”

Dick shakes his head and almost ruefully admits, “It was like he was still the kid I’d known.”

They both look back to the costume.

Tim knows Jason’s childhood is one of Dick’s bigger regrets. That Jason’s time as Robin coincided with one of the bigger fallouts between Bruce and Dick. He doubts Nightwing would have been there for Tim without Jason’s death.

Dick might still feel like he owes Jason a brother, but Tim _knows_ he owes Jason for more than that.

“That’s good though, right?” Tim asks. “Hood working on our side?”

“I’m not entirely sure he didn’t pick the fight to stage a mob war,” Dick admits. “But say what you want about Red Hood, his mob wars tend to be productive.”

“If you ignore the bodies.”

Dick reaches up to tap the glass.  “It’s just… I miss him, you know. I didn’t know him as well as I should have, but he was a good kid.”

Tim rubs at the scar Red Hood left on his shoulder.

“I took him on a ski trip, you know. Just the two of us. A way to get away from Bruce for a couple days. I don’t many good memories of hanging out with him, too pissed over Bruce giving away Robin, but that trip… I thought maybe having a little brother wasn’t so bad.”

“And then there was Damian,” Tim cuts in, deadpan. He doesn’t like the mood that’s settled over the cave and though he hasn’t seen the suit move, Tim can feel its eyes on him.

“And you.” Dick grabs him in a quick, one armed hug. “Not so bad either.”

“Sure, by comparison.”

Dick dodges his playful swipe, but under the watchful lenses of the empty Robin suit, the somber mood settles back over him like a physical weight. “Hood didn’t remember. The ski trip, I mean. One of the best memories I have of him and he doesn’t remember it. It’s almost like…”

He trails off, but Tim’s heard enough stories to fill in the blanks. It’s almost like Jason’s a different person.

Tim’s eyes flicker again to the suit, thinking of the weeks’ worth of small movement. “Maybe,” he says after a long silence, “it’s impossible to come back from the dead without leaving something behind.”

After all, alone in the Batcave, one of the most secure places in the world, they’re both still calling Jason Red Hood.

* * *

It’s Alfred’s morning routine.

Even if on the weekends breakfast tends to be closer to noon than anything resembling actual morning. Alfred carefully sets the places, prepares more coffee than is strictly healthy as well as an assortment of eggs, sausages, scones, and pancakes. On occasion, or request he has been known to prepare a quiche or French toast as the family filters downstairs.

Damian’s the first to the table. Which is expected as he was the only one who was not on the streets yesterday. He frowns in the direction of the sausage, pours himself a cup of tea and with a surprisingly soft voice requests his eggs over medium.

Tim’s the next one down and he makes straight for the coffee before taking the place farthest from Damian. Dick’s a few minutes later, bursting in from outside, his jacket tossed carelessly on the floor right below the coat rack. Alfred raises an eyebrow and he backtracks, chagrinned.

A few minutes later, Bruce drags himself into the room. His eyes are still foggy with sleep and Alfred smiles at the memory of the boy who used to laugh at Bruce in the morning his fingers behind his head like bat ears as he mocks, _Not sunlight. My one weakness!_

Instead of sitting at the table, Bruce makes his way next to Alfred, blinking blearily at the place settings. After a second his face stretches into a lopsided smile. “Joining us today, Alfred?”

Alfred nearly drops the plate he’s holding.

He’d moved automatically in the morning, setting a plate for each one of his charges, preferring to abstain from dining with the family, but Bruce was right. There is an extra setting at the table.

And it’s the seat Jason always used to occupy back when it was just three of them for the morning breakfast.

“Alfred?” Bruce says.

Alfred sets down the plate at the center of the table and sits down hard on Jason’s old chair.

“French toast!” Dick says, spearing a slice with his fork. “We haven’t had that in ages.”

It was Jason’s favorite.

* * *

He doesn’t want to be Robin again.

Jason’s not sure he even remembers what it was like to want it. Why it had been imperative to beat Tim and regain the title.

Robin’s a flawed concept, a tragedy in motion. A child soldier thrust into a war that he can’t win, stolen youth.

Not that Jason had much of a childhood to start with. He can see the ways the training had twisted him. He loved being Robin when he was a kid, but near the end he’d been chafing. And as an adult, the concept makes him almost nauseous.

“Go away,” he hisses to the specter in the corner.

“You _can’t_ be Robin,” the ghost replies. “Not anymore. Can’t be _anything._ Barely even _real_.”

“Why would I still want to be Robin?” Jason says.

The ghost— _Robin_ —smirks at him.

And they both know the advantages of being Robin. The gadgets, the certainty of being in the moral right, Alfred’s food.

Having a family.

“Family,” Robin scoffs. “They already locked you up in Arkham once. You’re the bad guy, remember?”

“Go AWAY!” he shouts.

“I’ll do no such thing,” Robin says.

Only he’s moved somehow, hunched in an open window rather than hovering like the devil on Jason’s shoulder. The costume’s different, too. More armor, less brightness. A hooded cloak that does just as much to hid the face as the domino mask ever managed. It takes a second to recontextualize the costume. “Damian,” Jason concludes.

“-tt- Obviously.”

“Why are you _here_? Does B know you’ve slipped your leash?”

Damian shifts side to side, his eyes averted and Jason has a sudden moment of panic. He can’t think of a single reason to get a visit from one of the Bats unless something apocalyptic is coming or someone has _literally died_.

“Father doesn’t know I’m here,” Damian admits.

“Spit it out already, kid,” Jason urges. “I don’t like surprises.”

“I need to know how you died.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Everyone knows how I died,” Jason says. “Joker made damn sure of that. Shouted it from the rooftops. There’s a reason I don’t show even _part_ of my face when I fight.”

Because if the rumors ever got out that Red Hood and Robin were the same person, that would be the end of him. He doubts that the villains in the city grasped the concept of an ‘ex-Bat’ and no matter how good his training, without the protection of Bruce and his allies, Jason wouldn’t last long.

“Father never talks of it,” Damian says after a second. “At least not the event itself. All I know is that you disobeyed and you were caught.”

“That’s what he told you?” Jason expects anger to flare but it never comes.

“Is that not what happened?” Damian asks.

 _Why get mad at the truth?_ Robin whispers in his ear. _If you’d have stayed benched like Bruce wanted, you would have never_ …

“I found a lead on my birth mother, so I followed it. She sold me out to the Joker. You know the ending.”

Damian’s face flickers and if Jason’s read it right, Bruce hadn’t shared that particular information. And the kid’s probably got more than enough by way of mother issues to understand Jason’s side.

“I didn’t mean the circumstances.” The kid hesitates again, long enough for Jason to expect this is kid’s version of _tact._ “I mean the manner.”

For just a second, he can see his own face mirrored back in Damian’s. His teeth cracked, drooling blood, the lenses of the domino mask busted, his cheeks misshapen from bruises and swelling. He’d been older when he died, but while Damian was practically grown in a lab to the peak of physical form, Jason had been scrawny, malnourished and waiting for a growth spurt that wouldn't come until the Lazarus Pit rebooted his body along with his brain. The kid was probably about the same size as he’d been in Ethiopia.

Jason finds himself reaching for his gun. “Why didn’t you just read Bruce’s autopsy report?”

“Encrypted,” Damian admits. “I didn’t want to ask for Drake’s assistance in hacking my way in.”

“Jeez, you’re a piece of work.”

“You won’t shoot a child for asking questions,” Damian says, with a pointed look at his gun. “This is important. I need to know.”

Jason takes a step over him, close enough to loom. Damian tilts his chin up, defiantly and again, there’s that flicker of a different boy in the costume, his face battered. “You want to hear it? How he had me for hours. How he took a crowbar and beat me within an inch of my life. Then he rigged the place to explode and left. And right up until the last second, I was sure that B was going to roll up and save me.”

“A crowbar,” Damian says. He’s pale under the mask. “He beat you and he _laughed_.”

This whole scene is turning Jason’s stomach. “Kind of the clown’s whole shtick.”

Damian hugs his arms to his chest. There’s a stiffness to his stance that is painfully familiar. Broken ribs if he had to guess. Must be bad if the kid let out even slight signs of outward discomfort. He shifts his gaze from Jason’s face to the floor and asks, “Can I stay with you for the rest of the night?”

Jason blinks at him for a moment. Then he holsters his gun. He’s too unnerved by the request to do anything but honor it. “Fine. But call B first. My limit is one Bat at a time.”

Damian offers him a shaky smile. “You are not who I expected you to be.”

Jason bristles at the implication. “You know, you don’t have to take Batman’s word as law. Sometimes Batman’s a dumbass.”

“It’s not that. I just… I thought you’d have the demon in you.”

“What?”

“It’s something mother used to say. Back when my grandfather was fresh out of the Pit.” Damian yawns as he pushes his way past Jason and towards his bedroom. “Pity. Your attempts on Drake were amusing.”

The door to the bedroom slams, leaving Jason alone in his cramped living room. He mutters, “What the actual fuck just happened?”

From a perch upon Jason’s bookcase, Robin cackles in reply.

Jason ignores him and pulls out a phone to send a quick text to Dick.

_Tell B I’ve got the brat._

* * *

Research isn’t Dick’s strong suit.

But Tim’s words keep nagging at the back of his mind. _Maybe it’s impossible to come back from the dead without leaving something behind._ Add that to what Dick knows about the Lazarus Pit and well… maybe his instincts about Jason weren’t completely wrong. Maybe New Jason scares him because New Jason _isn’t really his brother_.

After all, none of them knows how the Pit really works. Maybe, a couple hundred years and a few dozen neon green baths ago Ra’s al Ghul was someone else. If Dick knows anything about the way magic works, he knows that you can’t get something for nothing and there’s no such thing as a miracle.

He taps at the keyboard, frowning. His records aren’t nearly as complete as the ones at the Batcave, but he’d made the decision to work remotely from his apartment. He can’t get Bruce or Alfred’s hopes up until he knows for sure that there’s something he can do to _fix_ Jason. Anything short of that seems unnecessarily cruel. He could ask Damian, but he doesn’t want to put his little brother in a situation where he felt like he had to choose between his families.

He almost asked Tim, but memories of Ra’s’s creepy fascination with his brother stopped him first. Besides, last time he saw Tim, he had the laser focus of someone knee deep in a project of his own. And Oracle is less than happy about taking on research jobs about one of their own. Which means she’ll help out, but it won’t be a rush job.

Dick pecks his way through his own research instead.

He’s not sure what he’s hoping for, if it would be better to know Ra’s started out rotten. Or if Ra’s used to be just like Jason. An idealist. A _good guy._

He doesn’t make it out onto patrol that night, falling asleep at his computer with a half-eaten bowl of cereal next to him. 

When he wakes up, the bio’s waiting for him on screen. Ra’s al Ghul’s early life accompanied by speculations about the demon of the Lazarus Pit. He skims the text, an oddly light feeling in his stomach as he finds himself stepping into the costume before he finishes, offering a muttered thank you to Oracle like she can hear him through the walls.

His cell phone sits forgotten on his desk.

* * *

The door to Jason’s room is open again.

Alfred spots it from down the hall, his heart hammering in his throat.

Perhaps Master Jason is just making himself known again. Perhaps he has been working his way up to meeting Alfred for tea time. It’s been more than a year since Red Hood’s reemergence in Gotham and Jason still hasn’t been back to the manor.

Alfred likes to think he could have talked Jason down from his more destructive ideas. Likes to think that buried in the Red Hood is the glimmer of the boy that Alfred loves. But he hasn’t seen Jason Todd in person since Bruce brought him home after Ethiopia. For all the discussions his charges have about the Red Hood, it’s begun to feel like they’re talking about a stranger.

He paces slowly down the hall, telling himself that he’s imagining the temperature’s steady fall, or the way his skin breaks out in gooseflesh. The walk is either longer than he remembers or he’s slowing down. It’s not laughter Alfred hears today but music, a marked difference to Master Damian’s violin concertos or Dick’s cheerful pop.

Under the music, Alfred can almost fool himself into thinking he can hear Jason singing along.

Steeling himself, he turns the corner into Jason’s room and stops dead in his tracks.

There’s a dark haired figure sprawled diagonally across the double bed. His hair is tousled, one leg off the side of the mattress, a hand waving lazily through the air like he’s conducting what sounds like some of history’s most atonal punk rock.

Alfred has to force the words out past the lump in his throat, “Master Jason…”

The figure on the bed turns and Alfred immediately sees his mistake.

All of his charges share a superficial similarity in their dark hair and blue eyes, but Jason and Bruce have the most similar builds of all of the adult Wayne children. Alfred’s seen it in the shaky security camera photographs of Red Hood, the way Jason’s shoulders had broadened after his death, the growth spurt that he’d died waiting for finally pushing him towards Bruce’s height.

From a distance, it’s easy to mistake one for the other.

“Alfred?” Bruce says.

“I’m sorry, Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “I did not mean to interrupt. Just… when I heard the music, and saw someone was in here listening, I thought it was Master Jason. Don’t mind me. It’s just the nostalgic fantasies of an old man.”

“You’re not interrupting.” Bruce swings his legs down to the floor. His eyes are rimmed with red, though he doesn’t appear to be actively crying. He reaches for the record player to stop the music before it turns to the next track. “In fact, you might be the only one who can understand. Dick knew him before, but not nearly as well as you and me.”

Bruce tries to flash a smile, but it looks wrong on his face. Like the muscles have forgotten how to move.

“Even knowing he’s back, I still miss him,” Bruce continues. “Sometimes, I swear I hear him talking to me.”

“Grief takes many forms,” Alfred says. The mattress dips as he sits down next to Bruce, their combined weight too much for a teenager’s bed. “It is permissible to miss him. Even if you see him every day.”

Alfred has certainly experienced the same. He still yearns to hear a different boy’s laughter. It had been years after his parent’s murder before the ghost of the boy Bruce used to be stopped following Alfred through the halls.

“He’s been asking for help,” Bruce whispers. “It’s like he’s standing right there.”

His eyes are slightly unfocused, staring at the spot next to the record player. Alfred puts a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “I’m afraid that we cannot help Master Jason until he decides he wants our help. In the meantime, may I suggest checking up on the sons you have at home?”

* * *

Damian isn’t in his room. 

He’s also not in the Batcave, the library or the kitchen.

“Lose another one, did you, B?” Jason says snidely. He’d been oddly quiet while Bruce had been playing the old music, but since Alfred interrupted his words have taken on an increasingly caustic bite. “Thought if I died, it might have made you more careful about where you put your birds.”

Bruce throws open the door to Dick’s old room, but there’s no one there either.

Tim opens his own door, rubbing at his eyes. “What’s going on, I’ve only had like ten minutes of sleep this week.”

“Damian’s gone.”

The fog clears from Tim’s face. “What? I know he made it back to the manor last night.”

“I haven’t been able to raise Master Dick,” Alfred says from behind them.

Tim tilted his head towards the side. “You think they’re off together? That doesn’t make sense. Dick was at his apartment all last night and I _know_ Damian came back here after patrol.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s snuck out,” Jason points out and it makes Bruce’s mind flash to the panic when Jason was gone. The feeling in his stomach when he knew he was too late.

“Bruce.” Tim’s voice sounds muffled by the dull roar of blood in Bruce’s ears. “Calm down.”

Bruce spins on his heels and heads for the Batcave, only vaguely aware that Tim and Alfred trailed behind him.

 _Kids sneak out,_ he’d told himself the first time Dick had done it.

 _He needs some time to blow off some steam_ , he’d assured himself when Jason had done the same.

 _He only found your secret because he’d been sneaking around,_ he’d rationalized when it was Tim.

But he couldn’t do that anymore. Not when he’d learned how much he has to lose.

The Batcave has all the tracking data he needs. The Robin costume has several transmitters. So does the watch Damian wears. As well as his favorite sneakers.

He sits down at the computer and pulls them up one after the other.

“What’s going on?” a new voice says and Bruce barely has time to reconcile that it’s Dick before he’s leaning over his shoulder. “Who are we tracking?”

“Damian’s not with you?” Tim asks.

Bruce ignores them both. Bringing up Damian’s cell phone tracker. Then his watch tracker. Then the one in his shoes. All three bounce back the same location.

“Haven’t seen him since the last family breakfast,” Dick answers. “I was actually coming over because of… isn’t that one of Red Hood’s safe houses?"

Bruce leans back in his chair, thinking of the scar on Tim’s neck. The bullet wound to Damian’s chest. The carnage in the wake of an impostor wearing Nightwing’s costume.

“You know I’d never do that, right B?” Jason says from his side. “I mean, you _know me_.”

“Hood’s got him,” Bruce says and wishes it was a relief.

“Jason wouldn’t hurt Damian,” Alfred says, but it does nothing to cut the sudden tension that has fallen over the room.

There’s a long moment of silence. Distantly, Bruce notices the looks his sons exchange. Then Dick swallows. “Bruce, the Jason we knew would never do that. But that was actually why I came here today. I’ve been looking into some stuff about the Lazarus pit. I don’t think anyone comes back whole. Not even Ra’s al Ghul.”

“See,” Jason hisses. He reaches for Bruce’s arm, but the touch is a phantom. “Dickhead has the right idea for once in his life.”

He waits a second, thinking that someone would chime in to contradict the sentiment, but almost subconsciously, everyone’s eyes had drifted to the empty Robin suit in the corner.

“I think,” Tim says softly, “that maybe we should go get Damian.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two notes:  
> 1\. Rating has gone up.  
> 2\. Chapter count has also gone up.

Jason wakes up to screams from the next room.

It’s the first time in months the screams haven’t been from his own nightmares and it sends a jolt of panic through him. Jason has always been a light sleeper, even by the standards of Batman and company. When he’d been a kid, he’d had to be. Back then, a deep sleep could mean the loss of all of his worldly possessions or _worse._ He rolls sideways off the couch and is on his feet a second later, moving toward the source of the sound.

Damian is asleep on his bed, thrashing against the covers. Jason takes a hesitant step past the door. He knows better than to try and touch someone in the grip of a violent nightmare. It’s a good way to get a nose broken.

“Kid!” Jason shouts from a safe distance. “Kid, you’re dreaming!”

It doesn’t get through. Damian kicks and then spasms, his body lurching as he topples out of the bed. The screams have turned into muffled cries of pain. But those cries are barely audible in the face of the crescendo of phantom laughter.

Jason slaps a hand over either ear, but the laughter persists, a manic, _Joker_ laughter. He forces himself to move, because he’s willing to take an elbow to the face if it’ll just make the laughter _stop_.

“Damian!” Jason yells. “Damian, whatever you’re seeing, it’s not _real_.”

He pins the kid’s leg first, wondering if he’d missed signs of scare toxin last night. Damian’s body lurches sideway, trying to fold in on itself.

And then Jason notices the bruises blooming out of nowhere on Damian’s upper arm.

“What the fuck?” Jason whispers before Damian manages an elbow to his jaw. He hisses in pain, but holds his position, considering the best way to pin Damian’s arms without hurting either of them.

Which is when Damian’s right forearm snaps with an audible crack.

Damian howls.

The windows to his safe house’s bedroom shatter as, _Jesus,_ Batman, Nightwing and Red Robin crash into the room. Full costumes despite the sun’s late morning light.

“Damian!” Dickface says, looking at battered kid on the ground.

Batman growls.

Jason raises his hands. “Look, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s really not what it looks like.”

Red Robin takes the opportunity to hit him with a sedative.

As the room starts to fade away, he realizes the laughter has changed. It doesn’t sound like Joker anymore.

No, it’s the same cackle Dick taught him back when he was a kid.

Robin’s laughter. 

* * *

 

The empty Robin costume overlooks the Batcave’s containment cell.

Red Hood’s unconscious, slumped in a heap in the corner of the cell. It can’t be a comfortable position. They didn’t even bother trying to slide him to a cot. If he’s anything like Tim, he’ll wake up sore and pissy.

Except he’s not supposed to be anything like Tim. Red Hood is violent. Unstable. A murderer.

But he was supposed to be one of them.

Over the past few months, there’d been a change in Red Hood’s MO. Fewer causalities. A hesitant response on the batchatter when Bruce called in all of his Gotham allies. Just a few days ago, he’d been fighting back to back with Dick.

Had Tim really read things that poorly?

His eyes flicker to the empty Robin suit. The mask has moved again. Even without the photographs for reference, he can tell the suit’s watching Red Hood just like Tim.

_Maybe, it’s impossible to come back from the dead without leaving something behind._

“Is this why you needed my help?” Tim asks the suit. “Did he leave you behind?”

Leave the family behind, leave _Robin_ behind. It makes a certain amount of sense. Attack the symbol of the thing you’re missing. Attack the people who loved Robin. Attack Robin himself.

He forces himself to turn away as Alfred enters the cave. The older man offers him a mug and Tim takes the caffeine gratefully. “How’s Damian?”

“Stable,” Alfred says. “His arm is fractured as are several ribs. He has a mild concussion. It looks… It looks like he was given a rather severe beating. Was it really Master Jason’s doing?”

Tim take a sip of coffee and finds it cold against his tongue. He frowns into the mug. Alfred’s always distracted when one of them is hurt, but that’s usually makes him more likely to serve the coffee scalding hot rather than ice cold. He takes a second sip anyway, his eyes drawn back to the empty Robin suit. “We saw him, Alfred. You could _hear_ the arm break. I don’t think he’s the same Jason you knew.”

Alfred stands a little straighter, his own eyes on Red Hood’s unconscious form. “For years all I wanted was for the boy I lost to come back through my doors.”

“And now?”

Alfred turns away from Red Hoods cell. “I’m still waiting.”

* * *

Jason did this.

Dick examines the injuries on Damian as he waits for him to wake up. The arm has been splinted and the faint trail of blood from his nose cleaned by Alfred’s careful hands, but it’s still obvious Damian’s been through a trauma. Though Dick can’t see them, the assessment of the injuries includes cracked ribs and several contusions.

Jason always liked kids. He would abandon any bravado in a heartbeat if it meant coaxing a smile out of a terrified young victim. And Damian, no matter how much he pretends, is still a little kid. Dick had thought, even if Jason didn’t consider them family, he might…

Damian’s hand twitches.

Dick shakes himself and refocuses as Damian’s twitch turns into something a little more distressed. He lays a hand on Damian’s shoulder as he lurches into consciousness. “Easy, hey, _easy._ You’re safe. We got you.”

He doesn’t calm immediately but after a second, he blinks up at Dick. “Grayson? What happened?”

“Red Hood,” Dick says. “It’s all right though. We made it in time. He’s lock up.”

Damian pushes himself to a sitting position, his unbroken arm cradling his ribs. “Todd? I could have sworn…”

“Sworn what, Dami?”

He frowns. “I could have sworn I heard someone laughing. I thought that perhaps the clown had infiltrated the apartment.”

“Joker?”

“I know what he sounds like, Grayson. He was there. I swear it.”

“The only other person there was Hood. How did he even manage to grab you? Tim said you came back to the manner last night.”

Damian wrinkles his nose.

“Snuck out, huh?”

“I had questions for Todd.”

Dick leans back against his chair. Even upstairs, the manor feels like it’s the same temperature as the cave, enough that his fingers are starting to feel stiff. They’d moved Damian specifically so he could dodge the chill. But with the temperature like this, they just as well could have kept him in the cave. This can’t be conducive to healing. “You know I’m going to need an elaboration on that.”

Damian glances toward the door. Probably looking for Bruce. But between Jason in captivity and his youngest son injured, Bruce was dissociating into Batman, turning his focus onto a problem that Dick’s not sure he can fix.

“What do you know of the Lazarus Pit?”

“Mother didn’t speak of it much. But we all knew when grandfather had made use of it. The demon… was closer to the surface. We could all feel it. We would dream of it. I had wondered if Todd was the same.”

“You wouldn’t be able to tell, though,” Dick said. “I mean, you didn’t know him before.”

Damian lets out a soft huff. “I have heard the stories. I don’t think I was right. He’s different than grandfather.”

But he wasn’t. They’d all… told stories about Jason in childhood, about how he was reckless and violent even when he was Robin. But the more Dick thinks about it, the more he remembers it differently. It’s like he’d forgotten all the good parts of his first little brother when faced with the man he became. “He hurt you, Damian. If he was really the kid I used to know, he never would have hurt you. He changed after he came back.”

Anything else meant that the Red Hood was inevitable. And if Red Hood was Jason’s fate from the start, where did that leave someone like Damian who had been bathed in darkness from birth?

Dick can’t believe that. He won’t.

Damian looks down. “Grandfather would change, too. After he used the Pit, I mean. Mother and I could both see it.”

“Like he lost something,” Dick says. “Just like Jason did.”

Damian falls silent for a long moment, his face troubled. Finally he whispers, “If it was Todd who did this to me, he was laughing. Just like the clown.”

He doesn’t protest when Dick bends over to give him a hug.

* * *

Jason lingers at Bruce’s shoulder as he watches Dick and Damian’s conversation on the Batcomputer’s monitor.

 _Like he lost something,_ Dick had said.

“I’ve been trying to get him to stop, you know. But Hood won’t _listen to me._ ” Jason’s face is pinched. “You won’t listen to me either.”

He pushes back from the Batcomputer, through the place where Jason had been standing and the apparition evaporates only to reappear a few feet farther away.

“What are you looking at?” Tim asks from behind him.

He’d been looking at the scarce information about Lazarus Pit side-effects. For something that could explain the man they had locked in their cells. He’d known that Red Hood was volatile. Known that offering his second son a chance to earn his way back into the family was risky.

But he’d expected the fallout to be over the corpse of a criminal, not over an attack on his youngest. Hood had attacked them before, but Bruce had truly thought that time was over. He’d been wrong.

“Dad,” Jason calls. He’s bouncing on his toes. “We’ve got to get out of the cave. Damian woke up!”

Tim follows his gaze. “Seriously, Bruce. Is something there?”

“Damian—” Bruce starts.

But Tim has always been better at reading him that. “Damian’s upstairs. He’s stable and Alfred said the cave was too drafty to keep him down here if he didn’t need to. There’s someone else in the cave.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything. He’s always been fascinated to watch Tim piece together the clues. More than any of his other Robins, Tim was, at his heart, a detective.

Moments like this, watching things click into place, Bruce thinks he must have done something right.

When Tim finally speaks, his words are hesitant like he’s afraid of Bruce’s reaction. He glances over his shoulder, back towards the cell where Red Hood lays unconscious.

“I think the cave is haunted,” he says.

Bruce waits. It’s an interrogation tactic that has become habit through the years, even in casual conversation. He knows Tim recognizes and resents him for it, but this is not a sentence Bruce is prepared to deconstruct without all the information.

“I noticed it a couple weeks ago,” Tim says in a rush. “The suit. I mean. Jason’s old suit. It’s moved. At this point, I have enough data that I’m pretty sure it’s not Alfred. He swears he only touches the thing to clean once a week. Couple that with the fact that I keep seeing the door to Jason’s old room open. And the fact that Alfred told me he keeps hearing laughter and…”

He stops mid-explanation, his eyes wide. He’s breathing hard, and with every exhale a wisp of what looks like smoke hangs in the air in front of him.

In the silence, Jason steps closer to him, his head-tilted curiously. “Huh. I didn’t think anyone would notice that.”

“The cave’s haunted and it’s _Jason_ ,” Tim says, oblivious to the phantom standing in front of him. “I’m not making this up. I have proof. Photographs. Say something, Bruce.”

“Yeah, B,” Jason chimes in. “Say _something_.”

“I believe you,” Bruce says, though saying it out loud feels dangerous. Like acknowledging his son’s ghost meant he might lose him. “I’ve been seeing him, too. For months now.  I thought I might be going crazy.”

“Seeing him?” Tim echoes.

Bruce forces out a long breath. “He’s standing right in front of you.”


	6. Chapter 6

They huddle awkwardly around Damian’s bed. Bruce looks vaguely green at the sight of Damian’s bandages. Tim keeps glancing at his tablet with the feed of the cell where Jason is caged. Before the others had barged in with a stack of photographs, Dick had been trying to pinpoint what was bothering him about Damian’s set of injuries. He’s missing something. A pattern.

Then again, if Tim and Bruce are right, he’s missed a lot of things.

Dick flips through Tim’s photographs, one after the other. Tim had been meticulous with the shots, same angle, same lighting. And he’s right. Behind the glass case, the suit has been moving, inch by inch, day by day. The glove hand curling, the torso shifting. He passes the pictures to Damian when he’s through with them, watching as Damian sets them on his lap so he can flip through with the hand not bound by a slung. 

“Photographs can be faked,” Damian says.

“By Master Timothy?” Alfred asks. “What motive would he have? Either someone in this room has moved the suit, the Batcave has been compromised or…”

Bruce lets out a snort of laughter. That alone is enough to stop any semblance of conversation as they turn to look at him.

“Didn’t know you still remembered how to do that, B,” Dick says, in shock.

“Not exactly an appropriate sense of humor,” Tim comments dryly.

“Apologies,” Bruce says, his eyes flickering to the corner of the room. “It’s just Jason. He could— _can_ —always make me laugh.”

“Todd’s here?” Damian demands from the bed. “I thought he was in the cave.”

Bruce looks from face to face, as uncomfortable as Dick has seen him since the first time Clark referred to him as _my best friend_.

“No one else can see him?” Bruce asks.

Damian, Tim and Dick all shake their heads. It’s only Alfred who offers, “I’ve heard him laughing before. Seen something out of the corner of my eyes. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.”

“Jason’s in the cave,” Dick says, answering Damian. “But we’re not sure the Jason that’s in the cave is all of him.”

“You lose something when you die,” Bruce says. “And in Jason’s case, he lost…”

“Robin,” Tim finishes. “He lost the piece that made him Robin.”

 _Being Robin gives me magic_ , Jason chirps from the depths of Dick’s memory.

Dick chews on his lip. “And we’ve found him. _Robin_. The piece Jason lost when he came back from the dead? It seems like it should be harder than this. ”

“Hood’s admitted memory issues to me before,” Tim says. “Between that and that fact that Bruce and Alfred can see him, I think we might to be looking at an unexplained side-effect of the Lazarus Pit.”

Dick thinks with a stab of nostalgia about the ski trip that Jason doesn’t remember. Of the in-jokes hat had soared past him.

“Todd’s been less antagonistic in recent months,” Damian cuts in. “When I went to his apartment, he didn’t try to run me off. And from observing grandfather, the Pit’s effects do begin to wear off.”

“Of course he did break your arm, two ribs and deliver a rather severe concussion,” Alfred corrects dryly.

Dick places a steadying hand on Damian’s shoulder and gives him a quick squeeze.

Bruce tilts his head, his attention aimed at a vacant corner of the room. “Jay says he’s done his best to influence the Red Hood’s action, but there’s only so much he can do in his position. Apparently it’s easier when he’s not on his guard.”

“So, when he’s drugged,” Tim translates.

Damian shakes his head. “The Pit doesn’t work like that. A perfectly healthy person submerged is rarely affected by the waters. Part of the power hinges on being close to death.”

 _Maybe,_ Tim’s voice invades Dick’s thoughts, _it’s impossible to come back from the dead without leaving something behind._

“We can’t leave him like this,” Bruce says. “How it stands, Jason is a danger to all of us.”

Dick feels bile rise in his throat as he follows Bruce’s gaze to the empty space in the room before reaching again for Tim’s stack of photographs. None of them wants to say it aloud, but they all know the implications. It’s unlikely they can stitch Jason back together without pushing him back to the brink of death.

And Dick’s been to brink of death. It’s not pleasant. He recalls the darkness hovering his vision, the way the pain curled around every one of his cells. He wouldn’t wish it on any of his brothers. Not if there was any alternative

Jason—New Jason—has been largely an antagonistic presence since he came back, but Dick thought they might be trending closer to an equilibrium. He’s not the little bother Dick lost. He’s not a friend… but there are moments when Dick thinks he might be trending towards family.

“He’s in a containment cell,” Tim says after a long second. “We’ve aerosolized antitoxins before. It shouldn't be too hard to readapt our equipment. And we have anything we might need for treatment afterwards. We can make a window.”

A window.

A stalled heartbeat which could potentially give Jason’s ghost enough time to reestablish himself in his body.

To get them Robin back.

Dick looks at Alfred, but the older man has his hands folded behind his back, his lips pressed into a thin, firm line. Beside him, Bruce stares at the empty space in the corner of the room.

The place where he can still see Jason.

Dick wonders for just a second, what it would be like to see Bruce without the burden of Jason’s death and transformation. He hadn’t been a real father to any of them, not really, preferring to be Batman to their Robins. A business arrangement. Dick had never been looking for a father, but he thinks Jason’s death may have stolen something his little brothers need.

Getting that back… maybe it's worth the risk.

Damian breaks the silence. “You realize we are discussing killing him. Temporarily, in theory, but even with our medical equipment, it’s still a substantial risk.”

Dick feels a surge of pride for his younger brother, but when he opens his mouth to second the opinion, he catches sight of Damian’s battered face. One of his eyes is swollen shut, the other streaked with red. He’s sitting stiffly, his arm bound tightly in a sling.

Dick knows that pattern of injuries. He’s never seen it before, but he’s read the autopsy report. More than once.

Damian wears the same beating the Joker gave Jason.

And if Red Hood is far enough gone to beat the identical pattern into Damian, Bruce is right. They can’t just wait for this to blow over.

“I know it’s a big risk.” Dick takes a deep breath. “But I think we’ve got to try.”

* * *

Jason wakes up slowly.

The first thing he sees is the costume. His old costume. It’s his old suit. Same cape, same mask. There’s been three iterations of Robin since his passing and each of them had their own style. It’s not Dick’s either. The cut of it is different. It’s made for Jason-at-fifteen’s overly scrawny body. A second more of examination tells that the costume isn’t as pristine as it appears. There are tiny red stitches holding the fabric together. The bottom of the cape has tattered edges.

He realizes with crushing certainty that it is the suit he’d died in. It looms over like a parody of a protector. Like his conscious manifest.

The longer he looks, the more he can fool himself into seeing his own face reflected back.

“You’re awake,” a voice says.

Jason’s attention jerks away from the suit to the man standing in front of him. He swallows his first response, the ever present instinct to see Bruce and respond with _Dad_.

“Batman?” he tries instead.

“Red Hood,” Bruce replies.

Business then. Jason should have figured that part out. Jason pushes himself to his feet. “What happened? Why am I here?”

“You don’t remember?” Bruce’s face isn’t covered, but the cowl may as well be in place.

Jason frowns. He remembers Damian coming over, heading to investigate the screams and then someone laughing. “Is the kid okay?”

“Fine,” Dick says as he approaches the cell, Tim Drake on his heels. “No thanks to you.”

None of them are in costume, but for some reason that makes Jason more nervous rather than less. He knows where Red Hood stands with the Bats. Jason Todd and the Waynes? No idea. “I didn’t touch the brat.”

“We saw you,” Tim cuts in.

“Saw me do what? What are you talking about?”

“Damian’s in pretty rough shape,” Bruce says. “Concussion. Broken arm. Broken ribs. We had to sedate you to get you off of him.”

“I didn’t—” Jason starts, but then he finds himself faltering.

He’s hurt Damian before, after all. He’s tried to kill all of his would-be brothers. He dreams about it sometimes. The way it would feel to send their blood spilling out towards the ground. The look on Bruce’s face when he realized he’d lost another.

Jason’s mostly shaken those feelings. Gotham needs protection, and no matter how much more efficient his methods, Red Hood isn’t enough. He hasn’t wanted to kill any of them in a long time.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Dick asks. “Just like the ski trip.”

“Ever think I don’t remember your ski trip because the Joker beating me to death involved some minor _brain damage_?” The deflection is instinctive, while he panics internally.

He doesn’t remember a ski trip. His patchwork memories of his time as Robin aren’t half as clear as Red Hood’s time after it. And the trip sounds like it might have been important. Or at least important to Dick.

And if he’s missing that…

Maybe he doesn’t remember what really happened last night. Maybe he broke Damian’s arm instead of trying to pin it. Maybe he cracked the kid’s ribs with just a few pounds of extra pressure. Maybe it was his laughter ringing through the stillness of the apartment.

Robin’s laughter.

“You’re not well,” Bruce says. “You haven’t been yourself in years.”

“Because I forgot some shit about when I was a kid?” Jason says. “Look. I know I’m fucked up. I know I’m not the kid you remember and I doubt I was ever the one you wanted, but I’m _me_. Every single decision I’ve made good or bad. That’s been me.”

“The Lazarus Pit has some effects,” Dick says. “Not even Ra’s al Ghul comes back out the same. I did some research. He started out like you. He just wanted to do the right thing.”

“And he had several hundred years to change his mind!” Jason shouts. His eyes flicker to the Robin suit and he has to hide his flinch.

There are eyes behind the mask. The kind of pre-Lazarus blue that Jason use to have. He can see a phantom smile forming underneath them, the teeth almost razor sharp.

“No one makes it out of the Lazarus Pit without losing something,” Bruce says. “But there might be a way to get it back.”

Robin’s voice whispers in his ear. _They’ve never wanted you back._

There’s a hiss as some sort of gas diffuses into the room.

_They want me._

He hears the distant sound of laughter.

_Won’t they be surprised?_

* * *

Tim watches Jason bang on the glass on the containment cell.

“What the fuck is that?” he shouts “Dickface! B! Is that gas?”

“It will be over soon,” Bruce says, but Tim can’t tell if he’s talking to the phantom or to Red Hood. “You’ll feel better.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Jason roars. “Because I don’t remember everything from when I was Robin? I remember more than enough. B! I had three of your tires off before you found me.”

“I know my son,” Bruce says. “He would never do what you did to Damian.”

The room plunges in temperature like a gust of arctic wind has swept through the cave. Tim hugs his arms over his chest.

“And I bet your kid would have never pushed a rapist over a balcony either, huh Bruce? You really think Red Hood wasn’t a part of me when I was Robin? You benched me for being too violent! Because I understood what you never did. Some people are _better off dead_. Your precious Robin _always believed that._ ”

“Jason wouldn’t have hurt a child,” Dick says.

“I _didn’t_ ,” Jason insists. “Come on, Dickface. You didn’t even give me a chance to explain. Did you even ask the kid what happened before you barged down here?”

“Concussion,” Dick snaps back. “Which fits with our _eyewitness accounts_.”

“You’ve got it wrong!” Jason coughs in the growing fog of the aerosol in the room. “Christ, what is this stuff?”

“It’s poison,” Bruce says. “Sixty seconds without a pulse should be sufficient. More than enough time to revive you before brain damage occurs.”

Jason wobbles ones, leaving a sweaty trail against the glass as he slumps back to the floor of the cell. “This will kill me? B? What happened to your rule?”

“It’s the only way to get you back,” Dick says. “Lazarus magic only works when someone is between life and death. It’ll give Robin a chance.”

Jason coughs again.

In the distance, Tim hears the sound of laughter.

Tim’s missed something. Something _huge_.

They call Ra’s al Ghul the Demon’s Head because of what the Lazarus Pit did to him. Jason, as far as Tim’s survallience has shown, hasn’t killed anyone in almost a year.

Hasn’t done anything but help them.

“Dad,” Jason chokes.

Out of the corner of Tim’s eye he sees movement from the empty suit.

Only it’s not empty.

There’s a dark figure slowly filling Jason’s Robin suit. The mask not showing white lenses but rather a vivid blood red as the shadowy arm reaches through the glass of the containment cell.

“It’ll be all right, son,” Bruce says softly.

Tim lunges for the Batcomputer, keying the sequence for the cell’s emergency purge.

“Tim!” Dick shouts. “What are you doing?”

Dick makes a move to grab him, but his reach is uncharacteristically sloppy. Tim ducks under it, glancing at Jason’s unconscious form and Bruce’s shocked one as he takes aim at the shadow and lowers his shoulder.

The glass case shatters as it hits the ground.

* * *

 

EPILOGUE

Six weeks pass before the next time Jason speaks with any of the Bats. They’d tried when he woke up, but Jason, jittery, tired and possibly still a little hungover from the goddamn _poison,_ hadn’t been in the mood for it. In the interim, he’d seen them across rooftops. Red Robin’s normal patrol route overlaps his territory and Nightwing nearly always swings through when he’s in town, but the few times Jason’s gotten a glimpse of them, they headed in the opposite direction.

Not that he wants to talk to any of them. Yell at them, maybe, but not talk.

“Your situational awareness has deteriorated, Todd,” a voice says, breaking him out of his thoughts.

He startles back at Robin’s appearance, memories of the taunts ringing in his ears. Not to mention the last horrific image of the thing inhabiting the costume he’d died in.

“It’s me, Todd,” Damian says.

“Sorry.” Jason’s lucky the helmet hides most of his reaction. He doesn’t want to show Damian any hint of weakness. “I kind of expected you to be grounded for another few weeks.”

“Recovering, not grounded,” Damian says. He sits on the ledge of the building, his legs dangling over the edge. “I would have come to find you sooner, but Pennyworth is infuriatingly difficult to evade when he decides to dedicate himself to a problem.”

After a second, Jason joins him on the ledge. “I’ve been there.”

Jason sneaks a look sideways. The kid’s recovered from the beating, nothing left but some almost-faded green-yellow bruising.

Damian reaches up and peels the domino mask from his face, holding it in his gloved hands. After a long moment he says, “I owe you an apology.”

“Why? You were unconscious for the attempted murder.”

“I knew it wasn’t you,” Damian says. “But I let the others talk me out of my conviction. Played right into the demon’s hand. And I’m supposed to be the one with knowledge about the Lazarus Pit’s dangers.”

“That’s what it was?” Jason asks. “A demon?”

“A species that attaches themselves to a person who has been submerged in the Pit’s waters,” Damian says. “It’s the only way they can make it to this realm. I should have recognized the danger well before it escalated.”

“It’s gone though? The demon, I mean.”

“Father’s specialist says it was banished when Drake broke the glass case. Something about destroying a talisman. It’s possible its shade survived, but it shouldn’t bother any of us again.”

“Good.”

Damian scowls at his mask. “I should have done more.”

Jason makes an abortive move to place his hand on Damian’s shoulder. He hides it by undoing the latch on his helmet instead. There’s a slight hiss as it depressurizes and he places it in his lap. “It’s not your fault. I’m guessing this demon was the cause of your dreams, huh? Between that and the concussion it sounds like you weren’t in your right mind.”

“Father had all of us examined after the incident. Overactive visual and auditory activity, but nothing that suggested some compulsion.”

“Manipulated then,” Jason offers. He’s not sure if that will take any of the sting away, but he finds himself willing to try and wipe away Damian’s obvious misery. “What were those dreams about anyway?”

As soon as he says it, the answer is obvious. Even without Damian’s guilty look.

“My death,” Jason says. “You were dreaming about my death. Jesus. It was…”

“Gruesome,” Damian finishes. “After mother’s talk of Robin’s legacy, I’d thought it would have been cleaner. I don’t see why father chose another after your passing.”

“Me neither.” Jason runs a hand through his sweaty hair. “Robin’s not a gig that gets a happy ending.”

Damian turns over his mask. “It feels tainted now. Like the demon cursed it. Like it’s lost something.”

“My advice?” Jason licks his lips. “Get out while you can. Civilian out if you can stomach it. But if not, make a new identity. You’ll be much happier if you leave instead of being forced out. Ask any of us.”

“I’ll consider it,” Damian replies, frowning. “You know, you’re not who I thought you were.”

“Good,” Jason says. “Tell that to the rest of them and maybe we can avoid the whole almost murdering me part next time.”

“You should come back.” Damian’s grip on his mask tightens, his face studiously blank. “The others have been trying to give you space, but the only way to actually prevent this from happening again, is to make sure that all of us know who you are.”

The offer is tempting. More than Jason wants to admit. He’s been following Bruce’s golden rule for the better part of a year on the off chance that he might have this chance. Jason flips his helmet and sets it back into place.  

“Hard pass.” He shakes his head. “They were all happy enough with the ghost story. May as well leave it at that.”

“They miss you,” Damian says.

“They don’t know me at all.” Jason pulls out his grappling hook, fires off a line, and disappears into the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If you ever want to chat out of ao3, you can hit me up on tumblr @last01standing.)


End file.
